Inundation
Finally defeating the Marshank Ruins dungeon boss, Seb and his three partners decided to take a break from the missions and go check out some information. Who knew the ghost of Badrang the Tyrant would have taken them five tries?
"Oh? Someone's trying to summon Inundation you say?" said a mole clad in white, slouching on a couch and munching on the grapes the adventurers had brought her. "I killed him before, the pompous little fisher with the black fur and the smug face. Or was he a fox? Dunno, really."
"That's Isangrim you jerk!" exclaimed Fret, barely suppressing the urge to strangle the mole without an accent. How dare she rebel against the natural order!
Sebias facepawed and groaned. "Man, I can't believe we just did our chores for you!"
Jared shrugged nonchalantly. "I could have told you that, but it's fun watching you guys waste each other's time with these quests!"
"Scheint es nicht so, dass jede Handlung eine lange Reihe von Tangenten ist, nur für eine offensichtliche Lösung?"
"Learn English!" Fret snapped. "Use auto-translate!"
"No," came the autotranslated response.
0000
The quartet approached an old and frail badger, as thin as a twig and as wrinkled as, well, an old beast. "Oh wise and noble questgiver, please give us directions to defeat Inundation!"
"And I'm here too!" said Forsyth the hare. "For some reason, wot wot."
"I will tell you!" rattled the old crone. "You must…"
Sebias leaned forwards, desperate to hear more. "Yes?"
"Throw me a banquet! I'm going to need cheese, wine…"
"Nope!" Fret turned away. "Screw this!"
"Yeah, I know exactly how to get to Inundation. It's a red teleport crystal in searat territory! Come on, guys!" Jared beckoned for the others to follow.
All but Kio did as they were bid. The pikebeast remained behind to say, "Aber es wird nicht funktionieren, ohne die Quests zu erledigen!"
"Fine!" the badger snarled, slamming his fist into his other paw. "I don't need you anyway! Literally hundreds of people do that for me every day!
A new player, a young and green mouse Arcanist, walked up to the questgiver. "Good morning, Sir, My name is Benjamin Suntail, and I would like to ask how I can get to Inundation."
The badger winked. "Well first I'm going to need wine and cheese…"
0000
The adventuring party had reached the warp crystal.
"Alright. Last time we faced an Elemental, we got destroyed." Seb cringed as he remembered how Sepulture buried him under the ground repeatedly. "So guys, should we do some practice or something?"
"Maybe we could let Kio change his class?" Fret suggested snidely, attempting to trip the otter as he did so. "Or we could wait until he learns English? Not sure which takes longer…"
"No," said Kio, activating Autotranslate again.
"Sorry guys, I've got to finish this quickly." Jared checked his sundial. "I have an Eternal Bonding ceremony coming up in an hour. Let's go!"
"Won't let you down. I promise!" Sebias grinned.
"Er… this ruddy teleport crystal is weak and I need to use all my aether to maintain it!" exclaimed Forsyth. All he got in response were deadpanned faces. "Or something…" the hare sighed. "Are you chaps buying this?"
Sebias shrugged. "Yeah, whatever. We kinda accepted the fact that you Nestenes don't do anything important on screen."
Forsyth grinned, a great burden having been removed from his shoulders. "Okay, have a cracking time!"
0000
"He is come!" howled the searat standing beside Inundation, mighty serpent of the sea. "He is come! The Lord of Waves Inundation is come!"
"Sounds like he needs a tissue!" Fret remarked, elbowing Jared.
"Gross," said the squirrel, rolling his eyes.
Kio chuckled - a genuine laugh. "Hey, dieser Witz funktioniert auch auf Deutsch!"
"Godless land-dweller, thy myriad heresies shall not go unpunished!" boomed the voice of the ocean, as the head of Inundation emerged from the waters of the Eastern sea. "Upon thee shall I wreak the ocean's wrath!"
"Ah, I guess talking like that is their shtick!" exclaimed Seb. "Kinda weird how they choose Shakespearean English as their method of speaking."
"Cue the music!" roared the serpent.
The searats promptly whipped out drums, guitars and the like and began to play. But Seb realised it wasn't any Redwall tune. The guitar was electric, the bass dropped and the vocals started to emerge.
"Rock? In a Redwall game?" Fret exclaimed in surprise.
"What?" demanded Inundation, suddenly very self-concious. "Are you offended?"
"Heck no!" the ferret siddled over to where the band of searats were playing, singing along to their music. Badly.
0000
Far above the coast, a shrew perched above a mountain next to the coast. He smiled as Inundation finally dissolved into sea mist, Fret Raised Kio (a Jump landed him into a slew of bubbles) and Jared finally vanished, not wishing to be late for his little ceremony. "So Inundation is slightly less sucky than Sepulture," remarked Naron. "Very interesting - my vague motives are coming to fruition!"
"I dun like 'is, boss!" said Rainald the mole, who chose to accompany Naron against his will.
"Derr, I don't like this boss, nyenyenye! Shut up!" snapped the shrew, glaring at the mole.
"Burr aye, okay, boss!" Rainald grinned and saluted.
Without warning, a void opened in front of where the Southswarders were standing, and a very familiar masked beast walked through. Famfrit scowled at Naron, greeting him with a wave of the paw and a 'Sup.' in a rather high-pitched voice.
Naron scowled. "Why are you here? Surely you're busy pestering Sora, Donald and Goofy?"
"Sod off!" exclaimed Famfrit. "Mum says it's my turn to evilly brood over the protagonists from a distant clifftop! Out of here!"
The shrew and the mole walked away without further argument.
"Jerkass," Naron scowled. "What I wouldn't give to be Liska right now. At least what she does pushes the plot forward…"
0000
Meanwhile, Nest was on fire. The Southwarders had caught them completely by surprise - They raided the village when its most trained warriors were off on their beach trip!
"As you can see, mange-fluff, you are clearly outmatched!" said Liska to Eula, with a group of faceless Southswarder soldiers by her side. "You were wise to surrender.
"Stop being evil!" cried a generic extra.
The Southwarder kicked them between the legs.
"Ow, my cabbages!" groaned the extra, falling forwards into the dirt.
Her ear twitching in irritation, the squirrel turned to shoot one of her own beasts, who had been overzealously stabbing a corpse.
"I shot my own soldier, so that means I'm extra evil!" Liska grinned wide.
As Nest and the Veil burns and its inhabitants are taken prisoner, Famfrit and the Umbrages watch from the shadows, waiting for the moment to strike. Where in the world are the Taggerungs? Find out in the next chapters of Heroes of Mossflower!
A/N: Happy birthday, Jared! You're the only one here who actually plays some sort of MMORPG, so I hope you get the jokes.